Midfielders Brynjar Gunnarsson, Jay Tabb and James Henry amongst others also hit the greens while Noel Hunt, Brian Howard and Andy Griffin headed to the hotel’s water park.

After I finished chatting to a few of the players in the morning for Friday’s paper I decided to reward myself with some time off as well.

It’s been pretty hectic since getting here, so I went for a wander into Ptuj along the Drava river to explore Slovenia’s oldest town.

Like Reading’s destination in recent years, Kungsbakka in Sweden, there’s little to do in Ptuj.

But when McDermott and his coaching staff chose to base themselves in Slovenia a bustling and exciting town was nowhere to be seen on their checklist.

The Grand Hotel Primus has literally been turned into Hogwood Park’s Slovenian equivalent. There’s not much here that you wouldn’t find down at Reading’s training base.

And the daily routine is pretty much the same as you would expect at Arborfield.

I’m on the second floor and just at the end of the corridor is Luke Anthony and masseur Dan Buchanan’s medical room.

Being amongst the team, one thing that’s amazed me is how busy Luke and Dan are.

With 24 players to look after their job is non-stop, but this is also what it’s like ahead of every away game according to Dan who joined the club on a full-time basis in October.

McDermott said: “If you go in there at 10 o’clock at night Dan and Luke will still be working.

“It’s busy at this stage of the season and we do everything we can just to look after the players. By definition they are so important to us, so we need to protect them.”

The medical team’s job is as much about injury prevention as it is about rehabilitation and these guys are two of the un-sung heroes in the squad. Both are intrinsically important to Reading’s success.

On another note though, when I was chatting to Dan about his job, the one thing that he kept asking me was what song I would be singing to the squad.

I thought that one might die down after a few days, but again when Hunt and Howard were on the way to the water park they asked me if I had been practising and so did sports physiologist Karl Halabi.

It looks like there’s no getting away from this, but Mick Gooding is on his way here on Friday so maybe a Robson and Jerome duet is on the cards?